Smoking gun memo
http://www.teambio.org/2006/02/scrap...attack-on-911/
I saw this first in Krugman’s column and then via Whatever It Is, I’m Against it, but it was originally obtained by outragedmoderates.org.
This note, written by Department of Defense staffer Stephen Cambone on the afternoon of September 11th 2001, details Rumsfeld’s strategy to link Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as culprits of the attacks. I’ll say again, this was written on the only hours after we were attacked on 9/11.
Here’s a description of the text from outragedmoderates:
The released notes document Donald Rumsfeld’s 2:40 PM instructions to General Myers to find the “est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]” (as discussed on p. 334-335 of the 9/11 Commission Report and in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack).
In addition, the documents confirm the contents of CBS News’ Sept. 4, 2002 report “Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11,” which quoted Rumsfeld’s notes as stating: “Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” These lines were not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report or Woodward’s Plan of Attack, and to my knowledge, have not been independently confirmed by any other source. After the Rathergate fiasco, I wondered if CBS had been fooled into publishing a story that, from a publicity perspective, seemed too good to be true.
Finally, these documents unveil a previously undisclosed part of the 2:40 PM discussion. Several lines below the “judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. at same time” line, Cambone’s notes from the conversation read: “Hard to get a good case.”
More of the documents are available on Flickr, again courtesy of outragedmoderates, who should be thanked profusely by anyone who cares about how the administration lead us into Iraq via hour one of the post-September 11th world.
What I want to know is who else was in this meeting with Cambone and Rumsfeld? Did Rumsfeld receive previous directives from Bush, Cheney, Rove, or any other senior White House official to try and tie the 9/11 attacks to Saddam Hussein?
I don’t think that there’s much to add to this. It’s disgusting, it’s something we’ve long suspected, and now that the evidence is here, what chance is there that Rumsfeld will actually be forced to resign? None. What chance is there Bush will be impeached for this sickening teleology that has brought us over two thousand dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded GIs, and untold thousands of dead Iraqi civilians? There was never a cause for this war, it was all preordained by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. This is the most outrageous thing I have ever read in connection to American politics and it makes me want to vomit. I feel physically sick knowing that Bush did this and he will probably never be held accountable for the violent assault he has perpetrated on Americans and Iraqis.
Cross posted at The Baltimore Group.
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